The End of the World

by Lewis H. Lapham (Editor), Simon Schama (Introduction)

So what, then, should history be? And its best history is a way of understanding ourselves, fathoming the human condition, through an intense and close engagement with our ancestors, be they ever so remote as the ancient Persians were as close as the Doughboys of World War I. This should never be confused with ancestor worship, since histories incorruptible virtue is that it more often produces nasty surprises "See Thucydides" rather than consolatory pieties. To make that engagement serious and persuasive, effectively written history must have the power to tear the reader from his own time and place and deposit him into another they different, even alien world with the narrator as his only guide and scout. That world might be Jefferson's Virginia, the Mughal court of the emperor Akhbar, or the Hawaii of Kamehameha; but for the duration of the book, it should become more real and immediate to the reader than the commuter train or the corporate meeting. The past should get under our skin, working its way still fully into our cultural bloodstream, its transformation of our knowledge of who we are having the stealthy potency of poetry or philosophy. From the introduction by Simon Schama

Genres: History

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Lewis Henry Lapham was the editor of Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and again from 1983 until 2006. He is the founder and current editor of Lapham's Quarterly, featuring a wide range of famous authors devoted to a single topic in each issue. Lapham has also written numerous books on politics and current affairs.

Lapham's Quarterly
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/

Reviews

[Darryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End Of The World (1997) Lewis H. Lapham (editor) I picked this volume off the $1 shelf at a used bookstore. It was of interest because, as I write these lines in January 2026, one year into the second presidential term of Donald Trump, the U.S. seems in a particularly perilous state. Without recounting the debacles of 2025 the President has, in this first month of 2026 managed to fracture an Atlantic alliance of 80 years standing, alienating the country from its NATO allies by openly insulting them and threatening to takeover Greenland from Denmark for our national security. His efforts at closing our borders and deporting illegal aliens using a 20,000 member para-military force known as ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has resulted in massive protests in several cities regarding the violation of civil rights of not just non-citizens, but citizens as well, including in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens have been killed by ICE agents in the streets of the city. These are parlous times so I bought this book, which was itself produced when the prospect of the coming millennium was being met with a good bit of public handwringing and dire prediction, thinking it might give a little perspective on our current predicament, and, it did. The late Lewis Lapham was for many years the editor of Harper’s Magazine and for several years publisher and editor of a thematic journal of history titled Lapham’s Quarterly. This volume predates that journal but is structured along the same lines — a broad theme, in this case the end of the world, presented through excerpts from historical writings, usually in chronological order, on the topic organized by subtopic. In this case the subtopics are The Ruins of Empires, The Fall of Nations, and (pertinent to its time of publication) The Twentieth Century: The End In A Void interspersed with topical illustrations or art (e.g., the frontispiece is Durer’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse). MY takeaway: the end is always “nearish”, from 3000 B. C. and the Epic of Gilgamesh and the flood destroying “the world” in Mesopotamia through Troy, the Black Plague, and Nagasaki (among many, many entries and eons), to 1993-1994 and the predictions of the Montana cult Bahia of the destruction of New York City and the UN building on precisely November 26, 1994. As LHL nicely puts it in part of his Foreward: “The foretelling of the end of the world is as old as the wind in the trees, and against the siege of dire prophecy the reading of history provides a reliable defense…. Put to the trials of history, the end of the world doesn’t fulfill the promise of its advance billing. Although terrible the work is never complete, and no matter how broad the flood or how ravenous the flames, the living outnumber the dead — maybe not in the immediate vicinity… but within reach of a new generation salvaged, like all generations, from the wreck of time.” I feel better now… sort of.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years ago, the title of this book jumped out at me when I saw it in a used bookstore.
Little by little, I have worked my way through the dozens of primary accounts of times in history when it seemed like the world was coming to an end. Volcanoes, earthquakes, civil war, plague.
While primary accounts can be tedious to read through, their authenticity is irreplaceable and invaluable for any student of history. And these days, more than ever before, we need to be students of history.

Quote from p.287:
"History relieves our loneliness and teaches us that the story in the old books is also our own. Without history we become orphans, deprived of our kinship with a larger hole and a wider self, with those who have gone before and those who will come after."

[Crackerberries Crackerberries · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay, some of the chapters were too deep for my simple mind. If you are looking for a page turner, this is definitely not it.

[Rudy van der Hoeven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a book to read from beginning to end, but great for history buffs to do some apocalypse browsing.